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THE ENLISTED MAN 



ADDRESS 



HON. J. HAMPTON MOORE 

Member of Congress from Pennsylvania 



UNVEILING 

OF THE 

STEPHENSON MEMORIAL 
GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC 

WASHINGTON, D. C. 
July 3, 1909 



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THE ENLISTED MAN 



ADDRESS OF J. HAMPTON MOORE 

Member of Congress from Pennsylvania 

AT 

UNVEILING OF STEPHENSON MEMORIAL 
GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC 

Washington, D. C, July 3, 1909 



Mr. President, Mr. Chairman, Fellow Citizens :— In honor- 
ing the founder of the Grand Army of the Republic, we are paying 
tribute to the soldier of the Civil War who fought on land and 
sea. He is familiar to the present generation as "the veteran," 
grizzled and gray; the wearer of a modest suit of blue, the quiet 
dispenser of the garlands of May upon the graves of his departed 
comrades of the ship, the camp and the field. He has become a 
benign, historic figure, typifying "fraternity, charity and loyalty" 
in the personal, as in the national sense, and has earned the undying 
gratitude of the American heart, than which, perhaps no greater 
tribute has ever fallen to martial hero. "Veteran" though we regard 
him now, it is well to remember that he was of the youth and 
flower of the land when marching forth to battle from forty-fo. 
to forty-eight years ago. 

Lincoln's first call. 

Lincoln called for volunteers the day following the assault upon 
Sumter in April, 1861. The country was then in a high state of 
excitement, so that the first call for seventy-five thousand men was 
promptly responded to. The issue then was not the overthrow of 
slavery. The President demanded that the laws of the Union 
should be respected and enforced, and for this the volunteers 
enlisted. It was not expected they would long be needed in the 
field, but those who hoped for a short campaign were counting 
"without their host." The seceding States were determined to 
defend the position they had taken and prepared to fight to "the 



last ditch." Amongst the Confederate leaders there were men like 
Lee and Stephens, who had opposed secession, but when the "die 
was cast" their loyalty to their States was stronger than their love 
for the Union and they had to fight. With what determination they 
fought, the early victories of the Confederate Army well attest. 

FROM THREE MONTHS TO FOUR YEARS. 

The President's call was for three months' service, but he was 
soon obliged to issue other calls, and these were followed by drafts 
upon the male population, until the Northern troops had swollen to 
great bodies of men who ultimately sang as they marched from their 
homes in the North to the bloody Southland, — "We are coming. 
Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more." 

With each succeeding clash of arms, wath each defeat or victory 
throughout the whole of the first year's struggle, the spirit and 
determination of Unionist and Confederate were equally aroused. 
Patriotism and the sense of personal obligation to a cause, were 
never displayed with greater earnestness. The whole country was 
called upon for fighting men. The war lengthened into years and 
did not end until at least 1.000,000 men a year had been engaged 
for every one of the four years of strife. It had developed into the 
crudest, and the bravest; the bloodiest and the most heroic, of all 
the wars of history. Fully 350,000 soldiers upon the Union side 
fell in their tracks, or died from their wounds. The Confederates 
killed, or dying from their wounds, were less numerous. 

CONSIDER THE SACRIFICE. 

That war has passed. The vast majority of those who returned 
from the service have gone to the Great Beyond. Millions of 
afflicted parents and martyred wives and sisters of the combatants 
have been gathered to their fathers. It is only the veteran few who 
now remain to tell of the sacrifice. 

And oh, in the light of history, what a sacrifice that was ! Up 
to the time that Sumter was fired on we had prospered as a nation. 
We had built the superstructure upon the foundation which our 
fathers laid in 1776 and 1787. We had been fulfilling the destiny 
which they had mapped out for us. From 4,000,000 of people under 
the administration of Washington, we had grown in seventy years 
to be 32,000,000 under Abraham Liucoln. We had progressed as a 
common country in all essentials, save one. We could not agree 
upon the question of slavery. If in the present day, we are to give 
full understanding to the sacrifice of the soldier of 1861, we must 
take an account of the stock of our country at that time. 



FAREWELL TO OPPORTUNITY. 

We had long since settled down to business as a Union under 
the Constitution of the United States. We had fought a successful 
second war with England. We had just closed victoriously a war 
with Mexico. We had brought the Indians under Governmental 
regulation and we had begun to discover the wealth of our own 
great resources. Gold had been found in California, and, with its 
discovery, the trend of empire took its westward way. We had 
experienced and overcome the effects of a financial panic in 1857, 
the result of our own excesses. We had just learned that there 
was silver in Colorado and Nevada; that there was natural gas and 
petroleum in Pennsylvania. We had begun to penetrate the Oregon 
country. We had established a growing merchant marine; our 
ships were known upon all the seas, and Commodore Perry had 
opened up the ports of Japan. The railroad had begun to people the 
wilderness and bring it to the metropolis. We were beginning to 
appreciate the telegraph. The steam-printing press had been 
invented ; the steam-shovel, the power-loom and the sewing-machine 
were new creations ; the harvester and the reaper and other 
mechanical devices had come to the relief of labor. It seemed, 
indeed, as though the golden age of opportunity had set in for the 
youth of the land. 

YOUTH AND OLD AGE ENLISTED. 

The relinquishment of all these was a part of the sacrifice, but 
not all. The call to duty put them by, but the youth who shouldered 
his musket to engage in the hazard of deadly warfare, must also 
say good-bye to mother and to fireside ; the man must say farewell 
to wife and children; farewell to hopes and aspirations; farewell 
to ease and opportunity ; farewell, indeed, to life itself. Old men, 
or young men, it made but little difference then ; the cause demanded 
fighting men, and on to war they went. 

Down the streets of Philadelphia, in August, i86t, marched a 
regiment, the average age of whose members was nineteen years. 
"Why, they're only school-boys," said a bystander, but school-boys 
though they were, Birney's Zouaves were famous soldiers before 
that war was over. 

"a DRESS PARADE OP THE DEAD." 

The youth of the army! Remember the 151st Pennsylvania? 
A regiment with a hundred school-teachers and their scholars. 
Have you heard the story? Under the command of a Juniata 



pedagogue that gallant regiment stood at Gettysburg, face to face 
with the 26th North Carolina, administering shot for shot, and 
blow for blow, until 56 per cent, of its members had fallen dead 
and wounded. They spoke of the fallen of that re.giment as "a 
dress parade of the dead," so accurate was their alignment as they 
fell. But what of their brave opponents of the 26th North Carolina? 
They had plunged into that action with 820 men. They came out 
with 588 killed and wounded, the killed including their Colonel, 
Burgoyne, a gallant Southern youth who had not attained his 
twentieth year. No greater loss was inflicted upon any Confed- 
erate regiment in any single battle during the entire war. 

THEY WERE NOT HIRELINGS. 

But all the gallantry was not upon the side of the young men. 
There were fathers in those battles leading their sons or loyally fol- 
lowing the lead of their sons. "I want to fight with your regiment," 
said old John Burns at Gettysburg — and all day long his "bell- 
crowned hat" and his "swallow-tail coat" were conspicuous with 
his musket where the fighting was thickest. His silver hair and 
his seventy years had not diminished his patriotism, nor lessened 
his love of the Union. 

These were the men, both old and young, whose achievements 
invoke our admiration. Not hireling soldiers, not the professional — 

"He who fights and runs away. 
May live to fight another day." 

l)ut the soldiers of duty ; soldiers who answered their country's 
call, who went into the fray to stand, until they had won or lost. 

SERVICE OP THE RANK AND FILE. 

Associated with the exercises of this day are memories of 
heroism such as the world had never seen. The paltry few^ medals of 
honor which the Congress of the United States has bestowed upon 
worthy men v/ent chiefly to private soldiers, sergeants, corporals 
and other non-commissioned officers. Admiring comrades and 
companions have reared their shafts of bronze and marble 
to the memory of beloved and gallant commanders. The private 
soldier, more than any other, knew the value of able and magnetic 
leaders, but in no other instance, it is believed, has a memorial 
sprung so directly from the hearts of the people in honor of the 
private soldier — the modern veteran — as does this memorial of the 
founder of the Grand Army of the Republic. We may not, aye, we 



dare not, minimize the glory of the victorious commander ; but we 
must not, indeed, we shall not, disregard the services of the rank and 
file. 

HEROES AT THE BLOODY ANGLE. 

Where in the world's history has there been such self-sacrifice, 
such gallantry as in the American Civil War? Who can stand at 
the Bloody Angle and not bow low in reverence to the gallant men 
of Pickett's Division, whose desperate charge repulsed, was the 
turn of tide in the war, and who of the eulogists of that command 
will fail to bow in turn to those intrepid, those immovable Union 
men, who met and drove the heroes back. Neither artist nor 
historian has yet been found to adequately paint the picture of that 
immortal clash of heroes. 

You read "The Charge of the Light Brigade;'' you catch the 
swing and rhythm of the lines. You see the dash, you hear the 
clash, and then, in imagination, j'ou witness the sad return of the 
broken regiment. But did you ever read the simple story of the First 
Minnesota Regiment? jMay we not compare it to "The Charge of 
the Light Brigade?" 

A SENTENCE OF DEATH. 

"Colonel Colvill," said General Hancock at Gettysburg, "move 
your regiment forward and take those colors !" 

"Forward the Light Brigade, 
Charge for the guns," he said. 

It was the sentence of death. Home and loved ones all behind 
them and knowing duty only, the First Minnesota, tired and broken 
from losses and long marches, moved stolidly upon an entire Con- 
federate Division : 

"Their's not to make reply, 
Their's not to reason why, 
Their's but to do and die." 

But that deadly charge served the purpose of the commanding gen- 
eral; it saved a break in the Union line, and consequent disaster. 

"Oh, the wild charge they made ! 
sang the poet Tennyson : 

"All the world wondered :" 



8 

And yet, world-renowned as was the battle of Balaklava, the total 
loss inflicted upon the Light Brigade was only j,"] per cent. 

What was the loss of the First Minnesota? Of the 262 men who 
made that awful charge at Gettysburg, 215 were killed or wounded. 
Only 47 came back. Will not some modern Tennyson write the 
unparalleled story of the First Minnesota, with its 82 per cent, of 
death ? 

INCIDENTS OP PERSONAL BRAVERY. 

"Colonel," said a beardless youth at Chancellorsville, "if you need 
the ammunition on the other side of the field, I will get it." He 
performed the task and marched backward to the regiment, while 
the bullets whistled round him. "Why did you walk backward?" 
said the commander. "Because, if they hit me, I wanted them to 
hit me in the face. It would look better to the folks at home." 

"No, sir," said a soldier at Gaines' Mills, who had been shot in 
the thigh, "that ambulance is for those who can not walk." And 
he walked, though his trousers were stiff with blood. 

"You're a Yank," said a stricken Confederate at Petersburg, as 
he received the canteen of a passing Unionist, "but you've saved 
my life." 

"Well," said a lad whose cheek-bone was shattered by a piece of 
shell at Fredericksburg, "this is what I came for," and he marched 
on. 

REMEMBER THE UNKNOWN DEAD. 

These are a meagre few of innumerable incidents by which we 
may judge the personal valor of the private soldier. Take him col- 
lectively : A regiment is ordered to make an assault to serve a 
strategy of the commander. They strike blindly ; hundreds fall, 
some to be reported killed, some wounded, some missing. By the 
side of a swamp, the command is given to march, and through "the 
slashing" a thousand men proceed, climbing over the limbs and 
branches and through the vines, unable themselves to fight, while 
the enemy pours its deadly fire from the other side. 

In the swamp they fall ; in the wilderness they drop ; in the trench 
they lie. Men unscathed, or wounded men, return from battle 
and are justly glorified and feted, but what of those who were left 
behind, unheralded, unmarked? Where is the poet who has written 
the praises of those who came not back? Where is the monument 
that fittingly records the heroism and the sacrifices of the uncounted 
dead? Let us include them in the exercises of this hour. Let us 
hope the extent of their great sacrifice may some day be measured 
and more fully appreciated by mankind. 



"Lay him low ; lay him low, 
'Neath the clover, or the snow ; 
What cares he, he can not know, 
Lay him low." 

world's record of losses. 

Statistics vary with regard to the losses in the wars of the world; 
but regimental losses v^tre greater in the Civil War than in any 
prior war of history. No record has been produced 
showing a regimental loss of 50 per cent, in any of the world's 
wars. The Light Brigade at Balaklava lost 37 per cent. The Garde 
Schutzen, at Metz, lost 46 per cent. The Third Wesphalen, at Mars 
La Tour, lost 49 per cent.* But in the Northern Army were seventy 
regiments representing nearly every State of the North that lost 
in single engagements alone, more than 50 per cent .of killed and 
wounded. There were 150 regiments of the Northern Army which 
lost more in single combats than did the Light Brigade at Balaklava. 
Witness the Fifth New York (Duryea's Zouaves), which went 
into the first Bull Run fight with 462 men and came out with 351 
killed or wounded ; or that heroic company of colored troops under 
Captain John McMurray, at Chapin's Farm, which lost 87 per cent, 
killed and wounded, the greatest percentage of company loss in the 
whole war. 

THE MORALE OF THE ARMY. 

He was not a soldier of fortune who enlisted from '61 to '65. He 
was fighting for the integrity of his country; the Northern man for 
the preservation of the Union, the Southern man for the rights as 
he believed them, of the separate States. He was not a marauding 
soldier, the soldier of '61, for the lines of either side were strictly 
drawn and moral standards were established not to be shaken. 
The bushwacker and the coward had no welcome place in the ranks. 

"I never entered a battle," said a Northern general recently, 
"without suggesting first the offering up of prayer." A member 
of the Cabinet of the great harmonizer, the present occupant of the 
White House, who graces this occasion with his presence, was a 
child in Texas during the war. His father was a Union man and 
duty called him North. "But he would never have gone," said his 
distinguished son, "had he not full faith that Southern chivalry 
would protect his wife and children from molestation." 

* Computed by General St. Clair A. Mulhollaud. 



THE GLORY OF THE SOLDIER. 

One glory of the true soldier is in having "met a foeman worthy 
of his steel." Since there is small honor in a one-sided victory or 
' a battle with weaklings, the martial glory of the Union soldier was 
in having met those who were his equals on the field of battle, or in 
the ships. The four long years of fighting, the scales tipped now 
in favor of one and now in favor of the other, proclaims forever 
the fighting prowess of the two great armies. But viewed from 
the standpoint of the citizen soldier of the North, the veteran type, 
whom the Grand Army of the Republic was organized to honor, 
ihe chief glory of the war has been the preservation of the union 
of the States and the resumption of that great progress which was 
halted in the early days of '6i. Nor is it stretching the truth lo say 
that the veterans of the Southern armies, laying aside the bitter- 
ness and disappointment of defeat, have come to realize the strength 
and wisdom of the Union and the inviolability of the Constitution 
and the laws. 



A NEW ACCOUNTING OE STOCK. 

After the lapse of nearly half a century, we are enabled again to 
take an accounting of the nation's stock and to compare it with those 
conditions that prevailed, with those opportunities that were post- 
poned, when Lincoln first sounded the tocsin of war. We had 
32,000,000 of people, including nearly 4,000,000 slaves, in scattered 
and conflicting States, then. We have 90,000,000 of people and no 
slaves, in forty-six united States to-day. Then the per capita 
circulation of the country was approximately $14; to-day it approx- 
imates $35. Then the estimated wealth of the country was $16,000,- 
000,000; to-day it is estimated at more than $116,000,000,000. Then 
largely b}' reason of the lack of a union of States, there were no 
national banks, and deposits in State banks, perhaps, did not exceed 
half a billion. The total deposits in national banks and kindred 
companies throughout the United States now, exceeds the wonder- 
ful total of $13,000,000,000. The war plunged us into a debt of more 
than two and a half billions, and this we have reduced to approxi- 
mately a billion. No nation upon earth, united as we have been 
since the great struggle, has prospered as we have in the United 
States. We have come to be the great wealth-producing nation of 
the world. We have resumed the work that was stopped in 1861, 
and have proven our industrial and agricultural capacity until we are 
able to create a wealth of $25,000,000,000 per annum. 



OUR PROGRESS WITH PEACE. 

So vast, indeed, have been our national operations, that our 
wealth is now equal to that of Great Britain and Ireland, of France 
and of Italy combined, and, strange as it appears in comparison 
with these old world countries, our debt is less than that of either 
of them. What if this Union had not been preserved? What if it 
had not been possible that this Grand Army of the RepubHc had 
ever been formed? In the wonderful re-habilitation of the country 
it was the veteran soldier who took a leading and an honorable 
part. He had saved the Union; now he must preserve and develop it. 
He caught the spirit of Grant at Appomattox, and with enthusiasm 
turned from the sword to the plow. He returned to the farm, the 
factory, and to the mine. He resumed his clerical and business pur- 
suits ; he took up again the studies in law, in medicine, in com- 
merce, that had been interrupted when he marched to the front. 

A SAFEGUARD OF THE NATION. 

What better time than this to own our obligation, our eternal 
gratitude, to the Grand Army of the Republic! Tested in the 
crucible of war, it has taught us the holiest lessons of peace. It has 
stood for "fraternity," that worthy soldiers might know and better 
appreciate each other; it has stood for "charity," that the poor and 
the feeble and the desolate might not go unattended ; it has stood for 
"loyalty," that the Union might never again be short of defenders ; 
and, over all, it has set an example of citizenship, which is the 
truest safeguard of the nation. So long as the Grand Army of the 
Republic is a power in the land, and so long as its memory shall 
last, this Government will not fail. 



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